Choosing symbolism

As part of my primary research, I came up with a short questionnaire with open ended questions.

I wanted to do this because as a non-Irish person, I’d feel worse than bad if I chose cliches and used my perception of Irishness instead of listening to a variety of personal responses from within the culture. It is not my lane. This entire project could be argued to be outside of my lane, but I wanted to see if I could negotiate a way through this subject and learn from it. When a dear Irish friend inherited a house in Armagh, we discussed the possibility of him running it as a holiday cottage. I was inspired to take some of the themes of the city and work with them. Georgian Day combined with an excuse to research the history and culture of somewhere I’ve been regularly visiting seemed like a lovely opportunity, and perhaps an interesting back story to the interior decor of a holiday cottage would be an additional attraction for tourists!

The history of England’s relationship with Ireland was not really told when I was at school. We didn’t learn about the atrocities committed by our ancestors, even very recent ancestors. The “Great”ness in Britain coming at the expense of whole populations left to die or be exploited really doesn’t feel like much to be proud of. I am constantly angry at the current state of affairs, and it’s about time I educated myself better on the historical context behind these ideas.

Whenever I’ve seen an artist handle criticism badly, I wonder… would I have done better? I can’t imagine the level of nastiness someone like Amanda Palmer has to deal with, but her refusal to engage with well written and gentle criticism left me feeling very uncomfortable. I can no longer call myself a fan. I really feel too strongly that we have a responsibility to question whether we SHOULD create things, rather than feeling completely entitled to make anything and argue that if it’s art, it’s legitimate. I care a LOT. How could I care better?

Anyway – long story short, I have a very short amount of time for this project and by necessity I’ll keep the results simple. I want to use symbols that have more authenticity than I could ever come up with on my own, so… if you are Irish, feel free to copy and paste the following & send it over to me via the form below!